One of the things everybody who seeks to analyze the NHL lockout takes with them is their own set of assumptions, assumptions that colour their analysis. The following are some of the things I believe about the current labour dispute.

Both the NHL and NHLPA believe fans will return quickly once the lockout ends. This was the experience of the league in 2004, and more than that playing hard ball in the margins only makes sense if the lockout does not disrupt the league’s growth of the last few years. Gary Bettman’s flippant “we have the best fans in the world” comment early in negotiations made it crystal clear that this was the league’s belief; the NHLPA’s stubbornness makes it seem highly likely that it is a belief shared by the union.

The impact of the lockout will be felt league-wide, and not hammer specific franchises. I have written about this previously, but the 2004-05 lockout did not seem to hurt specific teams more than others; the teams that had the worst drops in attendance coming out of the lockout were the same teams that had the worst drop in performance, regardless of geographic location. In other words, both sides are banking that the lockout will not wipe out certain teams that are already struggling, because that is not what happened coming out of the last lockout.

The NHL does not need to be losing money for a lockout to make sense. Here’s a secret: rich guys tend to be good at making money. An increase in the owner’s share of hockey-related revenue – from 43 percent currently to 50 percent – represents a sizable chunk of change on a league-wide basis. It’s $230 million, give or take today, and with 5% growth (the NHL’s model) at the end of a six-year collective agreement it will be worth more like $300 million/year. The owners do not need to be losing money to realize they want more money. More money is worthwhile all by itself, and if it takes a lockout to get it (particularly given how the league rebounded after the last one), than that is fine by them.

The NHL’s message discipline is a significant advantage. Unlike the NHLPA, the league does not have to worry about, say, Daryl Katz drinking a bunch of beer and going on Twitter and blathering on about how he misses the Old West, “when a word and a gun solidified and solved all problems.” The NHL hit Jim Devellano with a heavy fine when he used an analogy that compared players to cattle, and since then owners/executives have been pretty quiet and generally avoided disparaging the other side. It’s a good thing for the NHL, because every time a player steps in front of the microphone and calls Gary Bettman an idiot, it just makes the players’ association look bad.

Constituents on both sides have significant incentive to toe the party line. Elliotte Friedman spent some time on this in his latest column (read the whole thing here) and I agree entirely with his take on the matter. NHL owners who step out of line face large fines and the potential for other retribution down the road. NHL players who break with the union are ostracized and turned on. For those on either side, discontentment has to be expressed carefully and behind closed doors.

The NHLPA will not splinter over the course of a short lockout. I have never believed that the NHL could crack the union without first writing off the entirety of the 2012-13 season. I believe this because of two strong unifying factors: Donald Fehr, and the players’ antipathy for Gary Bettman and the league. Fehr is an old hand at this and has an impressive background; more importantly, he has done an excellent job of playing up his constituents’ decision-making power in the press and downplaying his own. All of those photo opportunities that feature Fehr standing in front of a ring of players? That is imagery designed to convey that he is not shaping the will of the NHLPA, but rather simply conveying it. The same is accomplished by continually meeting with players, having conference calls, and updating them via apps. While I tend to think that in terms of actual power Fehr compares favourably to predecessor Bob Goodenow, he has never conveyed the dictatorial image that Goodenow did. The other reason is that Gary Bettman has been around long enough to inspire deep anger in the players; that sort of shared emotion is a powerful unifying force.

If things go really badly, the NHLPA’s only option is decertification. While I stand by the point made directly prior to this one, the fact is that the NHLPA will not win a long battle with the NHL as a united front. The memories of the 2004-05 loss, the vicious infighting of the last few years, and a wide and diverse membership all point to it; the fact that players have short-term windows to earn large amounts of money guarantees it (because it is a structural disadvantage in a long-term fight). If this turns into a long battle, the only way for the players to rationalize it is if they can get correspondingly large rewards, and that means the abolition of the salary cap. That is not going to happen through collective bargaining. That leaves the courts.

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